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14 May 2016

I am angry with myself because of it. Every time I post something about the Jolly Roger I say to myself: nevermore. And here we go again...

I don't know how many of you remember the moderately famous mea culpa that Roger Cohen offered in 2009 after a few years of singing hosannahs to the Iranian "vibrant democracy". There was a brief recuperation period that, with the relentless drive by the White House administration to the deal with Iran, seamlessly and effortlessly transformed into a new wave of support for that drive and, especially, into a feverish search for the Iranian "moderates" among the ranks of Ayatollahs and their ilk. Obviously Jolly Roger just can't help himself.

How terminal was that recovery was recently shown by a Twitter spat between Roger the Clueless and Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American, who is an editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal. Reading his Wiki bio you shall see that Sohrab Ahmari does have a rather serious background in many things Middle Eastern in general and Iran in particular.

The spat itself doesn't require any comments, and if you are lucky you can see it in all its glory at this link. Just to make sure it is kept for posterity, as some hilarious moments should be, here are the main three pages of it (click on each to read comfortably).

Update: This one deserves a special mention, and it is missing in the above:

@SohrabAhmari Sohrab to be fair to @NYTimesCohen he saw the green revolution and spoke to at least 3-4 taxi drivers through his interpreter